The devolution deal for ‘greater Bristol’ won’t set most people’s pulses racing. But ask those who live and work here what’s important to them and many will say housing, transport, education, jobs or a combination of the above. As it happens, the West of England’s deal is geared towards addressing all of these issues.

On the table is £1bn to invest over 30 years in housing, transport and skills. Post #EUref, when ‘taking back control’ swayed views about our country’s future, handing responsibility for these issues to local areas seems an obvious step.

It’s probably worth five minutes’ of everyone’s time in the scheme of things.

Despite predictions that the mayoral contest was too close to call, voters gave an emphatic victory to Labour’s Marvin Rees. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn saw fit to travel to Bristol to congratulate his new mayor.

As I live outside Bristol, I didn’t vote in the mayoral elections. But I followed the contest with interest and was not surprised by Labour’s win after a drawn-out and sometimes tetchy contest.

On many measures, Rees inherits a city in better shape than in 2012 when independent George Ferguson became Bristol’s first elected mayor. It weathered the recession well and has the most productive economy outside London. Its Enterprise Zone in Bristol Temple Quarter is creating more jobs than any similar local scheme. And the arena project is becoming a reality, more than 20 years after it was first mooted.

These achievements should be recognised as a testament to Ferguson’s leadership, although many of his trenchant critics won’t see it that way.

Bringing a big city arena to Bristol has been a long-standing cultural ambition. A huge collective effort has been put into getting the vision for a gleaming 12,000-capacity venue and a redeveloped cultural and residential quarter beside Temple Meads to this stage.

The former Diesel Depot site which will host the facility has lain largely fallow for years since it earned its name for engine goods storage. And there are many good reasons for the seemingly slow progress.

It was especially satisfying because we supported this bid with an excellent campaign which demonstrated strong public appetite in the West of England for government investment in infrastructure for plug-in cars.

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If you’ve read any posts, columns and opinions about 2015, it would be easy to think that last year was a bad one.

People of Columnia have a negative tendency, but it seems that there’s plenty to trouble us. Terrorism, austerity, economic under-performance, migration, Europe and runaway house prices all point to a bad year.

I’ve also had many conversations about ‘leadership failure’ over many of these issues. It seems that people have had enough of being soft-soaped. This was demonstrated in Jeremy Corbyn’s extraordinary victory over the ‘Westminster elite’ in the Labour leadership campaign. It was also expressed in nastier ways through trolling and threats dealt out on social media.

Opinion formers have an appetite for predictions at this time of year. After so many people called the big events wrong in 2015, it’s daft to attempt it for the coming year.

I want to be optimistic and set out some hopes for 2016. Some relate to national issues, others are more local and there’s a personal one too. All are important to me and, if they happen, it should be a good year.

A big conversation is happening around Bristol that could shape local housing and transport for decades to come.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been working with colleagues to get ready for a major consultation which could map where thousands of new homes are built across the West of England over the next 20 years.

The phrase ‘West of England Joint Spatial Plan and Transport Study‘ won’t set pulses racing. But the issues it covers should interest anyone who has views about where they live, how they get to work or school or whether they will be able to keep a roof over the heads in future.

Five years, one month and a day after joining the HCA, I departed last Thursday to take up a new job.

I’m returning to agency life at JBP, an extremely well-respected company which specialises in PR (in all its forms) consultation and public affairs. From tomorrow, I’ll be a senior account director in its Bristol office and I am hugely looking forward to the opportunity.

That’s not to say that it was an easy decision to leave the HCA. After all, I was able to influence discussion around a hugely important area of government work. I had a flexible and fair employer and I enjoyed what I did. In the end, I moved because it offers me an opportunity to progress my career in areas that are most important to me.

I will still champion the HCA though and there are many reasons for this. Three of them have stood out in recent conversations. Read more of this post

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I was one of a group of commuters who took to Twitter after being held up in traffic caused by a survey on the way into Bristol this week. I set off early yesterday to start a busy week and hit an hour-long crawl coming off Wells Road as drivers were ushered onto the roadside and asked to complete a census.

I was late, and not happy, and my tweet said as much.

Traffic 'census' in rush hour @BristolCouncil? Sorry, better things to do, like get to work an hour late. Foul mood now.

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The weird and wonderful happenings in Bristol’s Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone continue to generate headlines on a local and national stage.

This video of the BBC’s Dave Harvey in the thick of it with the acrobats at Creative Common was one of the more interesting pieces of coverage on the day of the Spending Review statement in Parliament. His piece focused on the contribution creativity and a quality environment can make to economic growth. Bristol’s Enterprise Zone puts these attributes at centre stage as part of the long-term plans to generate 17,000 creative jobs in the city. The result has been nearly 14,000 visitors to Creative Common and enough work for nearly 60 people to be employed in its first year. One hundred thousand people are expected over the next nine months, which makes what’s happening here pretty difficult to ignore.

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Ben Lowndes

Writer and PR man. Director at the brilliant Social Communications in Bristol. Former communications manager for the Homes and Communities Agency in the south west, who has worked with national and local government, housing providers, developers and community groups across England and Wales. Before that, I worked in newspapers.